


Twins Stuff

by RomulanAle



Series: OC Drabbles [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 00:04:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14883830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RomulanAle/pseuds/RomulanAle





	Twins Stuff

               Abellona is a necromancer. It’s her specialty. She can tug the strings to turn dead things into marionettes that talk and dance and fight until she gets bored of playing with corpses. She flicks her wrist and a flattened raccoon in the road twitches in tandem, its bloody jaws opening in a silent scream, its eyes pitch black and dark as the magic running through its opened veins.

               Abellona is no stranger to death. Her rough hands still hold the memory of a sharpened toothbrush when she was thirteen. They had planned to break out of the orphanage for years, but putting a plan into action was much easier said than done.

               “When we get out, we’ll just have each other.” Aspen had said, while they were hidden under a blanket after lights out. There were several other beds in the room, but the other kids were sound asleep.

               “We’ll be free you know. We’ll be grown up. We’ll need grown up names. Last names.” Abellona murmured into the darkness of the night. Aspen nodded sagely.

               “Don’t worry Abby, I’ll come up with some really good ones.” He said, his brows drawn in concentration.

She had never expected the homemade shank to actually work, and the skin of the warden’s throat had been tough at first, but quickly gave. The man had fallen dead at her feet after the third time the plastic shank had pierced his neck. It had been his fault in the first place. He wouldn’t let them leave, and Aspen’s bony wrist had been caught so tightly in the man’s grip it made Abellona see red.

               They climbed out of the laundry room window and never looked back. They still didn’t have last names, they never knew who their parents were. Aspen had looked up at the night sky, his breath visible in the night air. Far more visible than any stars. The light pollution from the city was blinding.

               “I wish we could see the stars,” Aspen whispered shakily. His thin hand was clasping his sister’s bloody one. The orphanage was far behind them, but they walked on. “I would never stop looking at them.”

               “I swear, I’ll show you all the stars in the sky.” Abellona said. Her voice was scratchy. Her head was swimming.

               “Aspen Starr! That’s my last name!” Aspen exclaimed. His almond eyes were dazzling in the city lights. Abellona forced herself to smile. Abellona Starr didn’t sound that bad.

               Abellona found out she was a witch at the age of fourteen, while her and Aspen had been playing in a dirty alley. Aspen had his card table set up as per usual, attempting to hustle tourists. They had stolen the table, and the cards, and the clothes they were wearing. They spent all day attempting to trick gambling pedestrians out of their cash and spent their nights in small community of equally homeless degenerates. Abellona wandered away from her brother’s cajoling voice. They rarely got any customers, even with Aspen’s abnormally charismatic personality. Abellona had always been the quiet one. In the back of the alley was a dead cat, and she kneeled next to it and allowed herself a moment of pity for the poor creature.

               In a moment of foolishness, she willed the cat to get up, to come back to life. It didn’t move. Sighing, Abellona rose and decided to join her brother at the table, since he tended to get nervous when she wasn’t around. She managed three steps before a horrible mock of a meow reached her ears from behind her, where she had left the previously extremely dead cat. She turned around slowly, hands raised in fear, and saw the twitching mass of fur. Its eyes that had previously been milky yellow were now black like ink.

               After that, Abellona discovered that she could do many things with her powers, and Aspen was a quick learner. All they had to do was focus and see something happening clearly in their mind. Picture the magic doing what you want.

               Abellona thinks that around that time is when Aspen started killing animals. A rat here, a dog there. Aspen wore knives on his belt and always kept plenty on hand. He was getting worryingly good at throwing them. Sometimes, Aspen’s face looked absolutely predatory. His grin reminded Abellona of something evil, but he was still her brother. She still needed to look after him.

               She caught herself acting strangely too. Dark thoughts manifested behind her eyes, and no amount of rubbing made them go away. There was an itch under her skin that made her fingers twitch. Aspen must have felt it too. Sometimes they would look at each other as a cat ran past their small camp in the underground complex, another plaything.

               “Stop it.” Aspen muttered one day. They were making their rounds in the city streets, pilfering and pickpocketing when it was convenient. They held hands reflexively and earned their fair share of baleful stares as they walked.

               “Stop what?” Abellona looked over at her brother in confusion. His brows were wrinkled.

               “Stop making that face.”

               “I’m not making a face.” Abellona responded patiently. Aspen shook his head.

               “You look like you want to tear somebody apart.” Aspen said quietly. Abellona realized that one of her hands was resting on the knife attached to her belt. She removed her hand like it had been burned.

               Abellona still remembers the night that one of the old men had died in their camp. The twins were the only ones who noticed, because they had come back in the middle of the night, and the place was practically deserted. The man was sprawled on the ground. He begged the twins to help him, to call for help. Abellona felt something in her chest, but it wasn’t sympathy. It was laughter. She laughed in his face as the breath left his lungs for the last time and her and Aspen played puppet master with his meat and bones until the morning.

               The Starr twins met Maddie when they were eighteen. They were well known around the city, and easy to pick out in a crowd. Their matching tattoos trailed down their arms and legs, piercings glittering on their faces, their clothes black and unusual. Aspen’s fringe hung over his left eye, and Abellona’s over her right. Everything paid for with money won through gambling or by snatching a wallet.

               At this point, they were fixtures in supernatural clubs, working their way up in the community.

               “You two are the out-of-control witches I keep hearing about? You’re a couple of kids!” Maddie practically face-palmed. Aspen had almost snarled, and Abellona was tempted to let her brother do whatever he wanted. However, Maddie turned out to be a much more talented witch than they could have anticipated.

               They somehow ended up living in Maddie’s cabin outside of the city.

               “Do you think our parents are alive somewhere?” Aspen had asked one night. He was sprawled on a mattress on the floor. They often dragged another mattress into the guest bedroom. They were so used to sleeping near each other that it was almost reflex. He threw a knife across the room, and it embedded itself in the wall with a soft thunk.

               “I think they’re dead,” Abellona replied, not looking up from her spellbook. “I think we killed them and we don’t even know it.”

               A flash of color passed in front of her eyes and Abellona turned to see a knife caught in the wall inches in front of her nose.

               “Don’t be morbid.” Aspen whined. Abellona stuck out her tongue and threw the knife back at him.

               Maddie made them breakfast in the morning. In fact, Maddie made sure the twins ate three meals a day, or at least lunch and dinner. They started to gain weight, and Aspen was no longer skin and bones. He looked, healthier, fuller, and Abellona noticed her own body becoming stronger.

               When the twins did something wrong, like kill a bunny or make a threat that’s just a little too on the nose, Maddie didn’t lock them up or hit them, she just expressed that she was disappointed. To Abellona’s surprise, that hurt almost as much. Abellona and Aspen learned to make a cake and balance a checkbook. Maddie even helped wean them off cigarettes, though Aspen refused to stop vaping in the house.

               That was before Lucien and Harley. Before the twins’ dad waltzed back into their lives and turned out to be a fucking demon, because that was just their luck.

               Abellona likes Hasani, and she likes being a cambion. It’s something that Aspen doesn’t understand. He looks at his biological father with something mimicking disgust. Abellona figures the kid spent too much time daydreaming about the parents that were one day going to find them again. Rescue them and let them eat ice cream for breakfast, or some vanilla shit like that.

               She likes the power. Aspen likes it too. He just doesn’t like the devil horns that come with it. Harley is a demon, and she follows Abellona like a cat. There’s also Joanne, who hunts demons on a sort of principle. Abellona is living a double life, but she’s becoming rather good at it. Aspen, on the other hand, throws himself into the arms of an emo vampire. It’s a friends-with-benefits situation, according to Aspen, and Abellona wonders when Lucien is going to realize that Abellona’s brother is a sadist with psychopathic tendencies and an innocent face.

               Hasani introduces his children to a coven of vampires, and the hair on the back of Abellona’s neck stands up. Aspen seems much more at ease, but it’s probably because he’s been closer to blood-sucker fangs than Abellona wants to think about. He immediately starts flirting with a short vampire with brown hair, and it’s utterly ridiculous.

               Philippe offers her a piece of ancient candy from a dish on the kitchen counter, and her face twists dubiously, but she hesitantly accepts it. Maddie has done her best to teach the twins about positive emotions, and Abellona forces herself to smile.

               “Uh, thank you.” She manages. Philippe offers a genuine smile in return. It’s alarming in an entirely new way, and Abellona hates herself for feeling like a pathetic puppy. Just in time, Aspen steps into the kitchen, eyes glittering.

               “So are you like, our second dad?” He asks excitedly. Abellona knows the little boy act is covering some kind of scheme, and she glares daggers at her brother, who ignores her diligently.

               Philippe blushes bright red, and Aspen has everything he wanted to know.


End file.
